The latest issue of "Getting Smart!"is now available for all Smart Growth Network members in the Members Section. This edition of "Getting Smart!" examines how the most public of places -- our community's streets -- can be transformed to serve not only vehicles but also pedestrians and cyclists.

APA Education and Lincoln Institute of Land Policy offer "Infrastructure Planning: An Expanded View," a CD-ROM that includes a recording of this session from the 2007 APA National Planning Conference synchronized with a PowerPoint presentation, program transcript, PowerPoint presentation note sheets, and supplemental reading materials.

As part of an ongoing focus on regional land use issues and as a means of building awareness about the value of green and open space, GLS Greenlinks was formed by the Flint River Watershed Coalition and the University of Michigan -- Flint's Center for Applied Environmental Research in the fall of 2003.

The Land Trust Accreditation Commission launched a new automated system for land trusts to register to apply for accreditation in 2009. The registration system, which became available on the Commission's website on August 11, 2008, allows land trusts to register for a specific application due date or "application round" in 2009.

Partners in Tourism, a national coalition that promotes culture and heritage tourism, offers detailed case studies on its website that describe efforts from across the U.S. to create tourist destinations based on local heritage and culture. Cultural heritage tourism can be described as traveling to experience the places and activities that authentically represent the stories and people of the past and present. It includes historic, cultural and natural attractions.

Why is green infrastructure important, and how can it be incorporated as business districts grow and schools are renovated, for example? To answer these questions Casey Trees has developed a series of issue briefs, "Growing a Healthier DC," that are available for free download on their website.

"America would not look the way it does if our metropolitan areas had been built in an era of $4 per gallon gasoline," writes Atlantic Media Company political director Ronald Brownstein in his regular National Journal Magazine column, pointing out that the end of plentiful and cheap energy and land means "energy policy and development policy must converge if the U.S. is to meaningfully confront the intertwined challenges of climate change and dependence on foreign oil."

Colleges and high schools "are steering students away from cars" to let them save on gas, help the environment and increase physical fitness, reports USA Today writer Gwen Purdom, quoting Oregon Democratic Representative Earl Blumenauer -- sponsor of a bill to include high schools in the federally funded Safe Routes to School program -- who said people "have over 100 million bikes that are sitting around in garages and basements and back porches" and when they begin to ride them, "it can be transformational."

The housing market is still down, yet consumer demand for energy efficient eco-friendly homes keeps going up, with some builders greening not just individual homes but entire neighborhoods, reports Associated Press writer Holly Ramer in ABC News, citing recent McGraw-Hill Construction research that shows that the green building market could reach $20 billion or 10 percent of total home sales this year, and double its value within five years.

Jolted by gas-price spikes, Americans increasingly focus on "the links among global warming, sustainable communities and transportation alternatives," says a Washington Post editorial, calling readers' attention to Senator Barack Obama's "New Energy for America" plan, which includes his commitment to build sustainable communities, reform highway-centric federal transportation investments, and level "employer incentives for driving and public transit," all elements the daily sees as part "of a larger policy push to foster smart growth."

Because of sprawl, the national number of vehicle miles traveled (VMT) rose three times faster than population growth between 1980 and 2005, including a 31-percent jump in Colorado -- from 10,900 to 14,340 miles a year for the average driver, writes state Democratic Representative Claire Levy in a Denver Post guest opinion, pointing out that the nation and Colorado can significantly reduce everybody's need to drive by "smarter land-use planning" and eliminating "hidden subsidies for sprawl and impediments to smart growth."

In another push against a U.S. Corps of Engineers plan to put an Army Reserve training center at a largely farmland-and-wetland site in northwest Middletown, reports Middletown Press writer Sloan Brewster, the city's Common Council passed a unanimous resolution opposing the choice, with Connecticut Democratic Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, flanked by state Democratic Senator Paul Doyle and Republican Representative Ray Kalinowski, telling its public meeting he notified the corps that it had embarked on an "illegal" course, which he will fight if necessary.

As elsewhere around the country, the ranks of recreational and commute cyclists in Lee County are swelling and seeking equal treatment as taxpayers and road users, with Bicycle/Pedestrian Advisory Committee Chairman Dan Moser asking the county to convert some 250 miles of paved right road-shoulders into designated bike lanes, but Department of Transportation (DOT) Director Scott Gilbertson cautioning that he would need $901,000 more for annual maintenance despite a $541,000 operational cut next year -- a problem of spending priorities the commissioners want the Smart Growth Department to help resolve by October.

Three problems for the growing number of cyclists in the tri-county South Jersey area along the Delaware River southeast of Philadelphia, to which many commute, are drivers' disregard, bad roads and the lack of amenities, reports Cherry Hill Courier-Post writer George Mast, noting that accidents killed 12 cyclists last year statewide but already 11 by mid-July, and that the state Department of Transportation (DOT) apparently granted municipalities and other public entities just 6.4 percent of the money they requested for bike and walkway projects.

While University of Utah officials work on selection of a "preferred" developer for their mixed-use Universe Project, which reflects the new Campus Master Plan's focus on transit-oriented development (TOD) for the Rice Eccles Stadium parking lot, where light-rail TRAX riders "detrain and walk along an asphalt desert on their way to the inner campus," reports Salt Lake Tribune writer Brian Maffly, some neighbors "question whether a university should get into the commercial real estate business" and allege its leaders care little about the possible impact on area traffic and local businesses.

Led by construction of the first interstates into the belief that car travel would soon become "universal," District officials felt 50 years ago they must adapt the "physical structure of the city to new forms of living" through zoning that still shapes development and requires vast off-street parking for most structures, but with 37 percent of D.C. households owning no cars even by 2000 and with mounting alarm over greenhouse gases and oil dependence, writes University of California-Los Angeles Urban Planning Professor Donald Shoup in The Washington Post, the District's Office of Planning earned praise for a proposal "to reduce the city's off-street parking requirements."

Everybody is Looking for Their Own Great Streets
Los Angeles Streetsblog, CA - 23 hours ago
Locally, a vote on complete streets legislation is expected in the California State Senate soon and in Woodland Hills, the Woodland Hills Warner Center ...

Editorial: Lee has golden chance to do much with little
Naples Daily News, FL - 17 Aug 2008
Our 2 cents: The county has a Complete Streets program. These days a street without bike lanes is short of complete. Who says all 250 miles have to be ...

Respected urban planner advises Davenport on ways to improve
Quad City Times, IA - 15 Aug 2008
Among Speck’s proposals, and he stressed they were only proposals and not plans, is providing bikers with complete streets so that if downtown is striped ...

AARP Poll: Older Americans Find Few Alternatives to Automobile
All American Patriots (press release), Sweden - 14 Aug 2008
Many states, cities and towns are looking for ways to solve this problem by adopting “complete streets” policies. The Columbus, Ohio city council just ...